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1.
2.
Chakras 02:21
3.
Durga 02:40
4.
Priyatama 05:26
5.
6.
Prastaba 04:43
7.
Jalaalaby 05:56
8.
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10.
11.
Neemrod 05:54
12.
13.
Shirodhara 06:39
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15.

about

Longtime collaborators and friends Sheema Mukherjee and Simon Richmond took a journey across India to explore local music and experience various approaches to wellbeing.

Along the way, they would collaborate with the desert-dwelling Manganiyar musicians from Rajasthan, the Pullavan Vena of the forest people of Kerala, classical vocalists and instrumentalists and a choir of schoolchildren among others, as well as taking time to meet and learn from massage therapists, perfumers and Ayurvedic doctors.

Sounds of the vibrant outside world permeated everything, including the house in Kerala, which Sheema and Simon turned into a recording studio. Sitting in the diffused light of the shuttered room they played keyboards and sitar, and structured their ideas for the music and massage, ready to be developed when they got home. The vibrancy of the surrounding sounds, however loud and bustling or gentle and serene, formed part of the unique soundscape.

Writing and recording music in India with the people they met proved to be another study of opposites; an enriching collaboration of folk instruments and studio technology. When Sheema and Simon presented a musical workshop, the children were delighted to see traditional sitar used in combination with digital recording equipment.

Finding harmony and peace in chaos resonated.

credits

released August 11, 2022

Track Notes

Inward Journey
A collage of sounds and textures we encountered as we travelled. This piece represents the journey inwards from the exterior everyday world of hectic train platforms where food vendors hustle past. A journey away from the day to day chaos of traffic - away from the city’s exuberant noise and towards a more settled calm within.

Chakras
The primary chakras according to Hindu traditions are connected with musical notes, colours, moods and parts of the body. For example, the root chakra, Muladhara is symbolized by a lotus and the colour red. Its musical note is the tonic in any given scale and expresses infinity. The second note is sorrow, third is peace, fourth love, fifth is joy, sixth is heroism and seventh is anticipation. When paired with the Karma treatment, during this piece a deeper connection is made as the therapist works through the chakras in unison with the notes.

Durga
We were recording in the studio in Trivandrum with Abhradita Banerjee and her music students. During a break one of the girls starting singing a traditional song from the ‘Gwalior Gharana’ based on the raag Durga. Sheema vaguely remembered it as a child as it is one of the first pieces she learned when she started her classical training. It describes a very dark and stormy night and the poet’s sadness as she wonders how she will keep her tryst with her beloved! We ended up recording it with Abhradita’s son and back in England we set the vocal to chords.

Priyatama
This was a folk song Abhradita’s brother used to sing. When she sang it to us over dinner, we both thought it was a very happy and uplifting tune. We put it with the earthy rhythms of Barwani Devi’s band. The swing and the pushed rhythm we thought would be great as part of the massage.
N.B. Rhythm recorded in Rajasthan, vocal in Kerala and recorder in Fareham...

Jaipur Night Trains
Simon sat up one night on a guesthouse rooftop in Jaipur, recording the trains as they passed. It was a sound entirely nocturnal as it came and went – part lullaby, part lament.

Prastaba
The mood behind this piece was one of tranquil contemplation and reflection. The idea was to quieten the mind with gentle melody and familiar sounds such as the sound of the sea. We wanted to keep it very simple, using sitar, piano, voice and soundscape.

Jalaalaby
When we first met the Manganiyar musicians in the Rajasthani desert we were blown away by the power, grace and charm of Jalal Khan’s voice. A few months later we went into the studio in Jaipur to record the Manganiyar group. We recorded a range of different songs, all of which featured percussion ensembles, Kamaycha and harmonium. We were taking a break when Jalal suddenly started singing an unaccompanied vocal idea to Sheema. Luckily we were still recording, and so later we were able to weave Jalal’s solo vocal into a new composition. The lyrics are about a father’s sadness when his daughter leaves the family home through marriage.

Lammebada Kirwani
This track was based around the romantic raag Kirwani, which is tempered with softness and devotion, and a traditional Arabic tune which we based in the cycle of ten; the ten avatars of Vishnu, God of preservation.

Trivandrum’s Children
We took sitar, keyboards and laptop to an orphanage in Trivandrum to try and interact with the kids. We had a morning of singing and making music together and this track was inspired by the children we met.

Elephant Village
A piece that collages sounds and textures from all over India – the bells come from an elephant sanctuary we came across just outside Jaipur, the rain was recorded under banana leaves in Kerala, the crows were from Darjeeling and the percussion was recorded in Kolkata. Jalaal Khan’s vocals are taken from the introductory passage of a song, the part where he sets the raag for the piece ahead of the actual song beginning.

Neemrod
This melody started on the musical notes of love and heroism, but ended up being cushioned by the voices of children singing Elgar (main notes are for joy and peace) in an Indian classical format. Strangely it just felt like the two were meant to be together, the overlap of people, music and cultures.
Riverbank Radio

We were moored up one evening on the Keralan waterways of Aleppy. Simon was trying to record every sound he could – women slapping their washing against stones at the river’s edge, the wakes of passing boats slapping the shore.

As night fell, some local festival music snaked up out of the trees on the far side of the riverbank. This piece sets this captured refrain against an orchestral backing – the distant song drifting in and out of the warm musical setting like the music we heard coming across the still river as the Keralan night pulsed around us.

Shirodhara
This is a collage of sounds of water from our travels – rain falling on huge vivid green fronds, rivers tumbling down from hillforts, a storm at sea. It seemed only appropriate to create a piece out of the sound of liquid flowing to accompany the part of the massage treatment where, based on Ayurvedic practice, warm coconut water flows from a suspended urn down onto the forehead.

Jalaal Finale
A reprise of Jalaalaby giving Jalaal Khan’s voice a chance to soar alongside Sheema’s sitar solo.

Final Meditation
Performed as an act of meditation. The sitar was recorded in Kerala.
Sheema: “We had been recording that day and had already had a tremendously busy week. I wanted to record some simple sitar, with no goals or specific ideas. It was hard to relax so I did some deep breathing, set a ‘stop’ time for the thoughts racing through my head, closed my eyes and just played.”

“The amount of music and sound we gathered and created on our travels was huge. The final tracks we chose worked best with and were tailored specifically to the Karma massage.”

Sheema Mukherjee published by Copyright Control MCPS
Simon Richmond published by Real World Works

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Sheema Mukherjee Southampton, UK

Sheema Mukherjee is a British composer and sitar player. She is best known for her work with musical collective Transglobal Underground and The Imagined Village. She is the niece of sitarist Nikhil Banerjee. In 2005, Billboard referred to her as a "sitar prodigy". ... more

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